Outcomes from the Child-Centered City Climate Policy Convening

What can cities do to center the unique needs of young children in their climate change policies and strategies?

Outcomes from the Child-Centered City Climate Policy Convening, 9 March 2023,

Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Stellenbosch, South Africa

In March 2023, Capita hosted the first Child-Centered City Climate Policy Convening in South Africa. It brought together over 30 multidisciplinary specialists in climate change and early childhood development from across the African continent and Europe to workshop approaches to placing young children at the heart of climate change policies and strategies in cities. Capita will be co-convening these events around the globe to generate new policy ideas for building the child-sensitive, climate-adaptive cities of the future. 

Summary of the Report

Key Messages

  • The intersection between climate change climate change and early childhood development requires urgent attention, investigation, and action because it addresses the needs of the most vulnerable segments of society and is a pathway towards long-term sustainable development.

  • Local governments should enable children’s and families’ formal and structured participation in decision-making around climate change policies and strategies. Importantly, pregnant women and caregivers of very young children need to be included in this process because the first 1000 days of life are a critical period of development during which physical and cognitive growth are greatly influenced by environmental factors.

  • The responsibility for mitigating the impact of climate change on children should be institutionalized within cities, municipalities, and other local government structures.

  • Local government should identify, inventory, and scale effective community-led approaches to mitigation and adaptation when it comes to early childhood development.

Context

The period from before birth until 8 years of age is a time of rapid physical, cognitive, and social development. The quality of this development depends on the care that children receive during this time, as well as their physical environment. Children are disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change because it affects the quality and continuity of their care, as well as their physical environments.

The intersection of climate change and early childhood development requires urgent attention, investigation, and action. First, designing child-centered responses to climate change addresses the needs of the most vulnerable segments of society—infants and young children—whose lifelong health, learning, and social outcomes are under threat. Second, placing young children at the heart of climate action is a pathway towards long-term sustainable development because investment in early childhood has long-term positive impacts on individuals, communities, and society as a whole. Optimal early childhood development results in improved health and education outcomes, greater personal resilience, and long-term positive social and economic gains.

Cities need to place young children at the center of climate action because the bulk of population growth (and therefore the concentration of young children) in the near- and medium-term is projected to take place in cities, and specifically cities in the Majority World.[1]

Opportunity 1: Increase children’s and families’ formal and structured participation in decision-making 

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) gives all children the right to express themselves in all matters that affect them. Meaningful participation involves a transfer of power from adults to children, which transforms the status of children from passive recipients to active agents who are informed and able to influence decisions affecting their lives. Local government offers the most practical and effective opportunities for children’s participation, which can lead to better services, more responsive local policies and plans, and a more effective use of local budgets in support of children’s priorities.[2]

An understanding of climate change should be built into curriculums with a focus on children’s action and agency. Children are most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change during the first 1000 days of life; therefore, awareness and understanding of climate change needs to be built among pregnant women and primary caregivers so they may participate on their children’s behalf.  

Appropriate methods for children’s participation should be put in place depending on children’s age. These methods may include drawing, storytelling, play, and school clubs. Outcomes from processes that encourage children to participate should be incorporated into formal municipal or local government processes. 

Campaigns that encourage adults to “donate your vote” to a child may help amend cultural norms around the validity of children’s opinions. 

Opportunity 2: Institutionalize the responsibility for mitigating the impact of climate change on children within cities, and other local government structures 

Few city-level climate action plans are child sensitive and most fail to distinguish between the different periods of development in childhood. ARNEC’s Most Vulnerable to Most Valuable[3] study maintains that the youngest children, from birth to age three, should be a primary focus as this is the most sensitive period of development. 

The early childhood sector is hypercomplex because the delivery of services cuts across multiple departments and levels of government. A disconnect often exists between the care that children receive, services aimed at children’s caregivers (which may promote better care), and activities that impact physical environments. Newly created municipal positions that incorporate young children’s needs into all climate action may help institutionalize a crosscutting approach, and municipal workers would benefit from transversal self-assessment tools that can guide improvements in their work.

Early childhood outcomes and short-term indicators should be visible and communicated widely to improve understanding of how climate actions may affect early childhood development and increase bottom-up demand for child-sensitive climate policy. Measurable outcomes can mobilize political commitment and encourage accountability because they can be applied to ranking and scorecard mechanisms. 

Resistance to change at the local government level can be countered by civil society and community action, but this needs to be mobilized through awareness and advocacy campaigns that capitalize on election cycles and link local government activities to maternal and child health. High-level political advocates at local government level can help promote change. 

Prioritizing young children within climate action should be reframed as a society wide issue and communicated to all sectors of society, not only to stakeholders who are directly impacted (such as caregivers). A rising tide of opinion will exert pressure on all levels of government and may unlock new sources of funding for early childhood development interventions.   

Opportunity 3: Scale effective community-led approaches

Communities enable access to early childhood services and provide the healthy physical environment that children and families need to thrive. When it comes to mitigating and adapting to climate change, communities understand the challenges faced by young children and pregnant women. They are able to respond to crises and meet the immediate needs of their members faster than other governance structures. 

Many community-based organizations already have child-sensitive climate activities in place. Local governments should inventory them as the first step towards scaling them. In scaling community-led solutions, the focus should be on physical interventions that make climate action visible at a “street” level. Visual devices in public spaces, such as murals, can inspire change in communities, especially when children’s participation is considered as the devices are developed.  

Find out more about Capita’s work on climate change and children.

Read more about our upcoming event on Child-Centered City Climate Policy in Monterrey, México (in Spanish).

Are the world's fastest-growing cities thinking about young children in their climate plans? Read findings from a Review of Climate Action Plans of the Predicted Ten Most Populous Cities in 2100

Download the report from the second Child-Centered City Climate Policy Convening in Monterrey, México (in Spanish).